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This chapter presents James Steuart's thought by examining the striking similarity between Scottish legal thought regarding custom and Steuart's use of the concept of the 'spirit of the people'. An exploration of Steuart’s legal education and contemporary Scottish legal theory reveals a common intellectual culture regarding custom and thus provides a likely source for the methods he advocates in Principles of Political Economy for studying political economy and forming appropriate policy. Collections of Scots law were slower to appear in print than those of English Common Law. This changed in the 17th century with the emergence of institutional writing, named for its reliance on the structure of Justinian’s The Institutes of the Laws of Scotland and intended for instruction and reference. As in institutional writing, custom, or the ‘spirit of the people’, plays a twofold role in Steuart’s economics.